Opinion (noun) – A view or judgement formed about something, not necessarily based on fact or knowledge
There has been a lot of chatter around team kits this season. Sky switching to Rapha is controversial for some fans, based largely on the prices the brand asks for its kit. There’s also the team that isn’t; Blanco. Blanco the ‘brand’ created for the team that can no longer speak (or at least advertise) it’s association with the men’s world tour; Rabobank.
Interestingly, what looks to VCSE like a nicely executed and simple strip, appears to be hated by the majority of commentators. The colours chosen closely follow the brand identity of bike supplier Giant but perhaps the stigma of doping that led to Rabobank’s withdrawl prevented Giant from taking the title sponsorship over.
One rung down the professional ladder there are further team kits that win the VCSE seal of approval. Vini Fantini’s luminous yellow jersey’s are anything but subtle but one that we can imagine wearing. Also, VCSE’s team of the week Caja Rural have a clean design that extends to the green accents on the Vivelo bikes.
The worst kits? AG2R’s brown shorts, Argos Shimano’s white / translucent kit when it rains and perhaps worst of all the decision to add Merida lime green to Lampre’s blue and pink. Never a good look.
Here at VCSE however, our vote for the best team kit in 2013 leaves the men’s tour altogether. With 65 victories in 2012 Specialized Lululemon were the most successful team in the women’s pro-tour. They have added some great new riders to the roster for 2013 who will join our GB rider Katie Colclough.
Describing the Specialized Lululemon kit as black and white doesn’t do it justice. Fortunately we can share this video introducing the 2013 squad along with our other women’s road racing content on the VCSE You Tube channel.
Marianne Vos won the women’s Tour of Flanders on Sunday adding the one title that had been missing to her already outstanding palmares. In this the third round of this years women’s world cup Vos, who understandably starts as the favourite for most races showed her excitement at claiming the victory that had eluded her until now.
We’ve added a short highlights package to the VCSE YouTube channel where you can also catch highlights of the previous two rounds. The women’s tour will stay in Belgium for the next round the Fleche Wallone.
You can watch more great cycling content including Team Net App at the 2012 Giro by using the link to the veloclubsudeglise YouTube channel.
Race report and video from yesterdays Trofeo Alfredo Binda. Look out for Marianne Vos having a singalong on the start line; not too sure about her taste in music!
The weather across Europe has showed solidarity with even Corsica resembling the UK this weekend. The stage race in 48 hours that is the Criterium International had opened with Saturday’s short (sprint) stage followed by a time trial.
Richie Porte (Photo credit: Petit Brun)
Richie Porte echoed some of the form that had seen him win the Col d’Eze time trial at Paris Nice a few weeks ago taking a one second advantage into today’s final stage to the top of the Col de l’Ospedale. But where was Chris Froome? Richie admitted that he had come to ‘work for Froome’ so it was perhaps a result that even Sky hadn’t planned for.
Sky’s preferred tactic of riding off the front in stage races hasn’t won them universal praise but as we have mentioned in previous posts the Sky system isn’t infallible. Bradley Wiggins’ preparations for the Giro haven’t exactly gone according to plan as he lost his support riders as the highest summits and steepest ramps approached. Wiggins coped manfully with this in Catalunya attacking at pace and blowing the peloton apart on more than one stage. However both of Sky’s leaders look vulnerable when they have burnt all of their (supporting) matches.
Until today that is, as the peloton approached the finish with Porte in yellow. Sky had been doing their normal job with Kiryenka leading, Froome mostly out of camera shot sheltering Richie. With seconds between the GC including Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) and Andrew Talansky (Garmin) the race was finely poised. An attack from Johann Tschopp (IAM) did for Kiryenka and with BMC and AG2R holding a numerical advantage Sky looked susceptible to attacks.
What happened instead was that Froome attacked! Rain and cloud prevented seeing it, but the confusion of Van Garderen and the others was palpable. Was Froome chasing down Tschopp? Had he realised he had lost Porte? While minds were blown Froome raced away and by the time Van Garderen and Talansky responded the damage had been done. Porte showed he still had the legs by riding away himself and claiming second although he would be relinquishing the overall to Froome.
From VCSE’s perspective the result could open up a new way of winning for Sky. In Porte Sky have a rider who looks like a potential GC contender. If Sky were to take two potential GC winners into the grand tours this year they could make themselves much harder to mark if they were prepared to flip the leaders jersey the way they did today in the Criterium.
It’s a tactic that could really pay off as a number of Sky’s rivals for GC honours do not possess a strong second leader, Katusha an obvious example. The question is; was today’s result for Sky by accident or design?
The return of Spartacus – wheelie’s optional
A win to please everyone (well most people!) saw Fabian Cancellara win Friday’s E3 Harelbeke. The race named after a motorway, while not one of the top classic races, had a strong field including Tom Boonen and Peter Sagan.
There’s been a lot of discussion about Cancellara’s continued ability to ride people off his wheel and Spartacus himself had shown his frustration at doing the hard work in races like Milan San Remo last year only to lose out in the final sprint to the line.
Boonen and Cancellara had been in an elite breakaway over the famous climbs of Flanders but it was Boonen that cracked first as Cancellara’s pace proved too much for everyone. Cancellara showed signs of hitting form at the right time last week at Milan San Remo but for Boonen following his abandonment at the same race there are signs that he could be having the kind of luck in the classics this year that Cancellara had last year.
Fabian Cancellara (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Another rider hitting form at the right time is Peter Sagan, although with Sagan it seems he is always capable of doing something. Podium spots at E3 and Milan San Remo have been eclipsed today with victory in Gent Wevelgem.
If the first few races of the classics season have been a battle of attrition against the weather then Sagan has proved to be the most hardy member of the peloton following another abandonment by Tom Boonen (following a crash) and Cancellara.
Everything is nicely poised for next weeks Tour of Flanders. Can Tom Boonen rediscover the form that made him so dominant last year? Unless it was the ultimate hubristic gesture, Boonen’s wearing of a jersey listing the number of his wins at E3 suggests he believes he is capable of winning this year.
if the weather doesn’t improve in the next seven days Flanders could throw up another surprise winner like a Ciolek or require the consistency of a Sagan or Cancellara. VCSE suggests a good each way bet could be someone prepared to animate the race like Heinrich Haussler.
Super Sub
Bradley Wiggins wasn’t the only rider at the Volta a Catalunya this week preparing for the Giro. Ryder Hesdejal had chosen the race as his first of the season where he will be hoping to defend his title in Italy against another face from this weeks action Jaoquim Rodriguez.
Unfortunately for Hesdejal things didn’t go quite as planned and he looked out of sorts in the mountains during the mid week stages. The good news for Garmin was that Dan Martin was in great touch and his solo on the queen stage on Thursday was VCSE’s ride of the week.
Dan has talked in recent weeks about his chances and while his overall win went down to the wire around the Olympic park in Barcelona today his closest rival Rodriguez failed to offer much resistance. Whether the result will see the emergence of Martin as a grand tour contender this year remains to be seen but as with Richie Porte it provides his team with options.
Unstoppable? Maybe..
The next round of the women’s world cup took place in Italy today with the Trofeo Alfredo Binda. The inevitable question of who could challenge Marianne Vos for the win was answered by a native. Elisa Longo Borghini (Hitec). Part of two rider break with Amanda Spratt (Orica), Borghini broke away to the delight of the understandably partisan crowd.
VCSE’s own favourite’s Wiggle Honda didn’t figure today but have got off to a great start in their inaugural season with wins for Georgia Bronzini and Emily Collins in recent weeks.
To mark VCSE’s decision to offer more coverage of the women’s racing scene we have added a women’s specific design to the VCSE store. In Giro pink and with every Giro Donne winner listed on the back.
All of our other designs are produced as a unisex T but we know that this new style offers a great fit.
Follow the links to the VCSE store on the right hand side of the page if viewing on your PC or Mac or at the bottom of the page on your tablet or mobile.
Joy (joi) noun – A feeling of great pleasure and happiness / a thing that causes joy
Recently reading some articles about Marianne Vos I was struck by two things that seem perhaps unconnected. The first; the fact that if she was a man she would be cast as the heir to Eddy Merckx, arguably the greatest ever cyclist. She is the consummate racer, a world and Olympic champion, winning across any two wheeled discipline she chooses. This in itself is noteworthy, one feels she should be celebrated more. Her profile should be higher than it undoubtedly is while she is still in her 20’s.
The greater impact is felt from the pictures in the two articles which were in the kind of magazines that probably see articles more as essays. In one photo, taken in winter sunshine so bright you can imagine the cold air, Vos is at a Cyclocross meeting. She beams from the page. Maybe from the satisfaction of a race won or someone who is naturally at ease having her picture taken. Perhaps her smile is because Marianne Vos enjoys riding her bike, any bike in any discipline, for ridings sake.
Happy – Marianne Vos
It’s natural here in the UK to seek to cast someone in the role of pantomime villain (only we actually know what a pantomime villain is after all) when one of our own is competing. After the best laid plans of the men’s road race at London 2012 were unpicked, the following day Lizzie Armitstead understood what every billboard was imploring; ‘Take the Stage’. As rain swept the Mall and the crowd yelled for a happy ending there was Marianne Vos to break the nations hearts and take the gold.
Armitstead, more understanding of her situation than the majority of those watching knew that the result was not some cruel twist in the GB Olympic fairytale. In the natural scheme of things finishing runner up to Vos was not as much of a disappointment as failing to jump Vos in the sprint, besides ‘..she is faster than most girls.. so I am chuffed with silver’.
In reality (read as among cycling fans) Vos was the clear favourite going into London and her palmares for 2012 as a whole is incredible, including road race and cyclo cross world championships and national cyclo cross and track titles. Added to the rainbow and national jerseys she also successfully defended her Giro Donne Maglia Rosa from 2011.
She was winning national championships within ten years of first riding a bike as a six year old and became a world champion while still a teenager, an achievement in itself until you realise this was across two disciplines. Endurance is an obvious need for any cyclist but the way Vos manages to sustain not just a level of competitiveness, but superiority from cross through road to the track is remarkable.
Motivation stems from becoming a ‘..more complete rider’ rather than the financial rewards despite being the most bankable rider in the female peloton. What comes across in her interviews is the joy that she takes from just riding her bike. Its ‘..a great feeling” to race, she describes road racing as ‘beautiful’.
It sums up the much lower profile of women’s racing in comparison to the men’s world tour however that it has taken victories in the few races that can be associated with the men for people to recognise Vos’ success, such as the Giro. She wants to see the sport grow, yet appears quite selfless about how she is instrumental in seeing the profile raised. What comes across is a strong desire to she women’s cycling expand and improve for all of her competitors. Certainly as passionate as Marianne Vos is about winning, she is capable of doing so without the expense of her relationships with the likes of Emma Pooley who she beat at 2011 Giro.
She describes cycling as a full time hobby, enjoying being out on her bike and in competition. One feels for her comparisons with Merckx are not important. For Marianne Vos perhaps being the worlds happiest cyclist is the greatest accolade that could be bestowed on her.
Postscript
Since writing this post over a year ago Marianne Vos has claimed further world championships in cyclocross (2014) and road racing. She won the women’s Tour of Flanders for the first time and in the last month the inaugral Women’s Tour in Britain.
Velo Club Sud Eglise 